- Coming up on Extra Credit, we make paper rockets, meet an engineer who helps people explore outer space and remember the life of an amazing woman known as the human computer.

Stay tuned.

- [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan and by viewers like you.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hi and welcome to Extra Credit where we meet interesting people, explore new ideas and discover fun places together.

Each episode, we'll introduce you to people who use math, science, sports and writing to make the world an interesting place.

My name is Mrs. Pizzo and I'm delighted to meet you.

Our theme today is space but before we head to the moan, let's meet our co-host.

- Hi friends, my name is Sarayu and I'm so happy to spend this time with you.

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to go into space?

I definitely have.

Do you know that there are some people who knew they wanted to explore space, even when they were little kids?

Let's start by hearing about one such kid, Ron McNair, who later became a physicist and was the second African-American to enter a space.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Carl] When he was nine years old, Ron, without my parents or myself knowing his whereabouts, decided to take a mile walk from our home down to the library which was 'course public library but not so public for black folks, - [Host] Okay.

- [Carl] when you're talking about 1959.

So as he was walking in there all these folks were staring at him because they were white folk only and they were looking at him so, you know, "Who's this Negro?"

(Host laughs) So he politely positioned himself in line to check out his books.

Well this old librarian she says, "This library is not for coloreds."

He said, "Well I would like to check out these books."

She says, "Young man, "if you don't leave this library right now, "I'm gonna call the police."

So he just propped himself up on the counter and sat there and said, "I will wait."

So she called the police and subsequently called my mother, police came down, two burly guys come there and say, "Well, where's the disturbance?"

And she pointed to the little nine year old boy sitting up on the counter.

He says, "Ma'am what's the problem?"

So my mother in the meanwhile she was called, she comes down there, praying the whole way there, "Lord Jesus, please don't let them put my child in jail."

And my mother asked the librarian, "What's the problem?"

Like, "He wanted to check out the books and you know, "your son shouldn't be down here."

And the police officer said, "You know, why don't you just give the kid to books?"

And my mother said, "He will take good care of them."

And reluctantly the librarian gave Ron the books and my mother said, "What do you say?"

He said, "Thank you ma'am."

(both laugh) Later on as youngsters, a show came on TV called "Star Trek".

Now "Star Trek" showed the future where there were black folk and white folk working together - [Host] Right.

- [Carl] and I just looked at it as science fiction 'cause that wasn't gonna happen really but Ronald saw it at science possibility.

You know, he came up during a time when there was Neil Armstrong and all of those guys.

So how was a colored boy from South Carolina, wearing glasses, never flew a plane, how was he gonna become an astronaut?

But Ron was the one who didn't accept societal norms as being in his norm, I mean that was for other people and he got to be a board his own star ship enterprise.

(lighthearted music) (upbeat music) - [Woman] Here on earth we can use sunscreen to help protect ourselves from the sun's UV radiation, in space, there's no atmosphere to filter out the worst of it.

So you think astronauts would fly around with an extra rocket full of SPF 50 to protect themselves but it turns out UV is the least of their worries.

If we ever wanna get to Mars, we're gonna need more than a tube of coconuts added grease.

There is UV radiation in space.

The sun puts out radiation along pretty much the entire electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays.

Starting around UV, electromagnetic radiation has the potential to strip electrons away from molecules and cause chemical havoc.

If UV light hits a piece of DNA, that DNA molecule can break and cause mutations in our cells that can lead to skin cancer.

Earth's ozone layer stops the most dangerous UV radiation but some less dangerous but still kind of dangerous UV can still get through and that's why we need sunscreen.

In space, there's much less atmosphere so you would think that astronauts would slather on the screen but they don't because spaceships and spacesuits are built out of stuff that stops UV radiation.

So theoretically there's more with enough UV in space to give you the worst sunburn of your life ever but that's the least of your worries.

The real worry for astronauts isn't UV radiation but high energy subatomic particles plus stuff like gamma rays.

The sun gives off both electromagnetic radiation and those high energy particles like protons, electrons and alpha particles.

Then there is the risk of and we are not joking, atomic nuclei from stars that exploded a million years ago.

These supernova remnants are called galactic cosmic radiation and they're mostly protons and alpha particles plus a smattering of heavier particles tearing through space at nearly the speed of light.

Don't worry about what all these things are there is no quiz and no homework assignment at the end of this episode, they're just small things moving very, very destructively fast and anything moving at such incredible speeds has a lot of energy and a lot of potential to break whatever it hits but it could be an unfortunate astronaut but it's more likely to be the wall of a spacecraft at which point some of those atoms could break apart and produce secondary radiation, more protons and alpha particles or gamma rays that might hurt the astronauts inside.

Here at home, we really don't have to worry about this kind of space radiation.

Far beyond the ozone layer earth has another radiation shield, our magnetic field and those space particles can be deflected by a magnetic field and the fact that our planet is a giant magnet comes in real handy when it comes to bashing most of those particles right back out into space.

Fortunately, although astronauts in earth orbit like on the International Space Station fly above our atmospheric UV shield, most of the time they're still low enough to be protected by our giant magnetic umbrella.

The risk is to astronauts who leave the protective confines of our magnetic field, say to the moon or Mars.

A round trip flight to Mars plus a nice year and a half stay carries with it a radiation exposure equivalent to roughly five and a half percent increase in the risk of developing a fatal cancer.

So any ship that travels outside of the Earth's magnetic field, including to Mars, would need extra shielding to deal with space radiation.

The best way to block protons and alpha particles is with something of a similar size.

That means that hydrogen who's nucleus is really just a proton, actually makes a very good shield against high energy space particles.

That's true even though it's the smallest element and that's good news for space travel because hydrogen is really lightweight and we'd have to take lots of it to space anyway, like in the water that astronauts will need to like live and stuff.

The sun produces radiation all the time but space also has weather of a sort.

Solar flares and other events can cause radiation storms that astronauts would need to shelter from.

So one proposed idea is to build a sort of bunker hidden beneath the ship's water supply to hide in if a solar flare causes a radiation storm.

Plastics also contain a lot of hydrogen so believe it or not a plastic shield is a very viable way to deal with potential radiation but any kind of physical shielding, even nice lightweight plastic, increases the weight of the spacecraft and the difficulty of launching it into space in the first place.

So engineers are also interested in developing a mini magnetic field, just like the earth generated one that protects us, which would basically be a force field which would be sci-fi as heck and really, really cool but current technology requires a huge, heavy power source to generate a strong enough field so it's right back around to the weight problem.

Radiation is just one of the many huge hurdles we'll have to get over if we ever wanna go to Mars.

NASA and other space agencies do care about the safety of their astronauts plus if interplanetary travel ever becomes a thing and I will be first in line if it ever becomes a thing, the rest of us will wanna be safe as well.

Evidently NASA hasn't considered that extra payload full of sunscreen so we'll let them have that one for free.

One more- (upbeat music) - I work in NASA Ames and I'm a space human factors engineer there and what that means is that I build tools and systems to help people make space operations possible.

Internships and summer programs are really, really important for girls and women.

I know that the reason I work in NASA is because I had the opportunity to work in NASA one summer and because I did that, I was able to understand what NASA is about, its mission, the kind of work I would be doing and I got the contacts that I needed so that when I finished school and college and grad school, I was able to talk to these people and find a job in NASA.

Girls should become engineers because we need girls, we need them to bring their creativity, bring their thoughts and their curiosity to the problem because they can do it just as well as I can and anybody else can.

(logo chimes) I've been very fortunate to work in a lot of exciting projects and as someone who is a bonafide space nerd, having the opportunity to experience all these things has been really, really amazing.

I've done everything from using the same shuttle trainer as astronauts and learning about how they train, I've been as lucky as being able to fly in the parabolic flight where you can experience microgravity but I think one of the coolest things that I've done is going to these analog field tests.

So analog field tests are places around earth that simulate some part of space exploration.

So one time I got to go up to the Arctic and really explore and understand how scientists would explore an area, kind of like Mars and next week I'm actually flying down to Florida because there's another earth analog where the astronauts are living in a habitat under water for two weeks and they are simulating all different aspects of being in a mission and exploring another planet, being on time delay, you can't even talk to them real time and so those kinds of experiences have really kept me motivated and excited about being in the human space flight program.

(logo whooshes) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - It's that time again friends, I just received word that Dr. Blotch is gonna check in with us to see how we're doing with our writing challenge.

It involves creating comics.

Are you ready?

(upbeat music) - [Dr. Blotch] Courtney.

- Dr. Blotch.

I'm totally here Dr. Blotch and so are you.

How's it going, what's up?

- [Dr. Blotch] Great except I'm hungry for more stories via comics.

- Oh well I mean, I'm working on it.

- [Dr. Blotch] Do have a comic for me?

- Yeah that's exactly what I'm working on right now, it's funny that this is when you would pop in.

- [Dr. Blotch] Let me see, let me see.

- Okay.

You know, it's not done because I thought I had a little more time but... - [Dr. Blotch] You do have more time but I'm anxious to see what you're working on Courtney.

May I please see your draft?

- I'm gonna risk showing you this outline for my next page.

Here it is.

- [Dr. Blotch] Yes, yes.

Yes pictures, yes.

I see, well, it seems like Sparkles is excited.

Her triceratops eyes are, - Right.

- [Dr. Blotch] are rather so large right now, her pupils are dilated.

Yes, I like the little score marks that you've shown to indicate motion.

Well, let's see, but by the time I get to the third panel you've drawn, I'm getting a little bored of Sparkles excited face, I don't want her to not be excited but isn't there some problem?

You have to have a problem in a story, right?

You have to have something that can be solved.

- You know, you're right, I totally forgot about that part I got really excited, you know, hence probably why Sparkles is so excited.

I was really interested in drawing the picture so I forgot to give her something to kind of overcome.

- [Dr. Blotch] Well, I can't blame you for that because what is art except for an escape, I can't blame you for not thinking of problems but, you know, you can draw from perhaps what if she's too excited?

How would being too excited get in the way of her work and her relationships?

I don't know Courtney, you come up with something.

- Look at me being inspired by Dr. Blotch.

I'm totally gonna do my best, I'm on it.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - [Dynae] Okay, so here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna do an activity and the activity is called Impact Crater and what that means is that we're going to pretend that we're creating craters on the moon from meteorites hitting them, okay?

- You need a pan and - Some flour.

- Some flour and we need that.

- We're gonna use some crab oil and we're gonna do this 'cause we want it to be cool when we have our meteorites hit the landscape, okay?

Hit the moonscape.

That'll have a of layers of stuff.

- So if you can see guys, my mom is pouring and I am shaking.

- That's good.

Now the next ingredient is, - Is the... - let's do some cornmeal.

Here, put that one there.

(boy exclaims) (pan rattles) Okay that's good.

- Yeah.

- That's good.

Now we just wanna lay it over top you don't have to shake it but what you wanna do is you wanna show people what it looks like so lift it up just a little bit.

- So this is what it looks like.

- Good.

We keep a lot of seasoning in our house.

- Yeah.

- We wanna make things, we don't use things that have like many different colors.

Let's put a little bit of this baking soda over the top of it.

I really don't want to part with this but it's my coffee.

I'm gonna put a little coffee on top of it too.

(boy mumbles) Here comes the fun part, are you ready?

- Oh yeah, wait for the meteor shower.

(boy kisses) (boy laughs) - [Dynae] So, before we get into the meteor shower you have to understand the reason why, what we're gonna be looking for.

One of the things that we've learned when we went to the moon the first time was we learned that some of the craters have high ridges on the side, some of them have deep centers and they have a name for all of these different things.

So we're gonna be looking for four things.

We're gonna be looking for the floor, we're gonna be looking for rays, we'll be looking for the ejecta, - [Boy] The ejecta.

- [Dynae] and you know what that is?

That's the stuff that pops out and then lands on the other part of the surface and we'll be looking for the wall.

One little tip, we are gonna be using a long cardboard tube when we create, when we do our craters.

This gon' be - [Boy] Yeah.

- [Dynae] these are gonna be our pretend meteoroids.

You know, it's a meteorite until it hits the surface then it becomes a meteorite.

- [Boy] Wow, cool.

Now we're going to use a small impactors, one regular speed, one slow motions.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Now we're going to use the medium size impactor.

(upbeat music) So guys we have a big marble, it doesn't even, a big impactor, it doesn't even fit in this thing, look.

Look how big that is.

So we're just gonna drop it.

(flour sloshes) (upbeat music) (marble thuds) (upbeat music continues) Hey guys, we are back and my experiment explode my mind.

- Your experiment exploded your mind?

Okay, so let's show everybody what we ended up with.

We're looking for the floor of a crater, we're looking for ejecta, we're looking for the wall and we are looking for the, - [Boy] For the... - [Dynae] the rays, the rays, okay?

So we're gonna carefully take the impactors out.

So let's identify some pieces now.

We've got the floor and then we've got like the wall, can you tell me where the wall is on that one?

Right there, very good sir.

We are looking for, the rays.

- [Boy] The rays.

- [Dynae] Now I saw rays when we did the first one, when we did the first impactor and then finally the ejecta, that's like all of this stuff that ended up everywhere outside of the pan and on top of everything else, like see so, we have a lot of ejecta on the floor.

- Thank you NASA for making me do this project, I really liked it, thank you.

- Bye.

- Bye bye.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (logo scratches) (children laugh) (birds chirping) - Welcome to Impact at Home where we practice interrupting prolonged sitting with activity.

I am Melanie Rappelli and this is my brother, Justin Strickland and my friend Landon and we are here to help you get moving for the next eight minutes.

You'll be surprised at what these moments of movement can do for you and for the rest of your family so you can stay active and healthy at home.

So go ahead, get up and let's start moving.

For this movement activity we're going to be doing a HIIT workout.

You do not need anything for this but if you would like a mat that would work for one of the exercises or the carpet is totally fine.

Let's go ahead and get warmed up.

So jogging in place.

Get our heart rate up before we jump into our workout.

Justin here will be doing the advanced version so follow him if you'd like more of a challenge and Landon will be doing the modified version if something is too difficult for you, go ahead and follow him.

(upbeat music) All right we're switching to jumping jacks.

(upbeat music) (footsteps pattering) Getting our heart rate up, nice job (upbeat music continues) (footsteps pattering) and squat jumps squat, squat, touch the floor, jump up, make sure you're leaning back on your heels.

Nice job, don't let your knees go over your toes.

(upbeat music continues) (footsteps pattering) All right and switching to walk out arm circles.

So walking your arms out, back in and arm circle.

Go ahead and do it again, walk your arms out, arms back in, hand and arm circle.

Nice work, again, last one.

Walking out, walking in and arm circle.

All right, jumping into the first exercise we have candlestick roll star jumps.

Landon go ahead and show the modified version, Justin will be doing the advanced version, here we go.

Toes up, nice and we're jumping.

Justin without his hands, toes up and he's doing a star jump.

All right, keep going, nice job.

Keep moving.

Nice job at home.

We're jumping, Justin's going.

All right, good work, keep going.

His arms are up and he's doing a star jump.

Good work, one more.

Nice job, just get your toes as high as you can.

Last one, arms are up, toes up and star jump.

Good work, all right, we're resting.

March it out, stretch if you need to.

Next one will be elbow hand plank.

Again, follow Justin for the advanced version, Landon for the modified version.

If you'd like a mat, go ahead and use the mat.

All right and we're moving, elbow hand plank.

All right, they're doing on the hard floor, you got it, nice job.

Keep moving.

Nice, Justin's doing his hands at the same time, Landon elbow, elbow, hand, hand.

Try not to wiggle too much at home, we're working our triceps, the back of our arms.

Nice work, as many as you can.

Couple more in there.

Nice job, good work at home.

Feel the burn in your triceps, we're working.

Good work, last one.

All right and we're resting.

Active rest.

You need to jog it out, march it out, stretch, twist.

Get ready for the next one we have crab tricep dip to opposite toe touch.

Justin will slide the mat out of the way, I think we're finished with that.

Get ready for dips with our elbows.

Dip, dip, opposite toe or opposite foot, dip, dip, opposite foot, opposite foot.

So Landon, if you're watching, he has his foot on the floor when he's reaching, if you like a little bit of an easier version if it gets too difficult.

Dip, dip, opposite foot, opposite foot, working our triceps and our core.

Nice job.

Couple more, we're reaching.

(upbeat music) And last one, dipping and reaching.

All right, go ahead and stand up for an active rest.

Moving in place, next one will be plank Jack hip to hip touch.

So we'll be starting in a plank and then touching each hip down to both sides.

All right here we go.

Holding a plank, feet go apart together, touch your hip, touch your hip.

If you'd like an easier version, drop down to your elbows, apart together, Justin's gonna keep going on his hands.

Nice job, keep moving.

Good work extending that plank, we're engaging our core.

Apart together, hip to hip.

Try to keep your core nice and tight.

Good work Landon, Nice job Justin, good work at home.

Couple more we got it.

Nice, again drop to your elbows if it gets too difficult.

Good work, last one.

All right we're standing and resting, active rest.

Good work.

Next one we have a pike push-up.

If you have a chair, you can put your feet up on a chair, if you think you have a lot of shoulder strength, otherwise I'd recommend just staying on the floor.

Your butt is on the air or your glutes and you are doing a pushup.

You are working your deltoids, your shoulder muscles.

Nice job as low as you can go without falling on your head, please don't fall on your head.

Nice job even if it's a little bend that's okay, you should feel it in your shoulders.

Nice work Justin, good work Landon, nice job at home.

Keep it up we're almost there.

Good work, good work.

All right a few more.

Two more, you got it.

Dip and dip.

Nice job, all right active rest and we're moving.

Good work, good work.

All right for our cool-down we are starting with some arm circles.

Go ahead and move your arms backwards.

The hard part is finished we are cooling down, nice work.

Other way, switch.

We're swimming.

(upbeat music) Keep swimming.

(Melanie laughs) Nice job, all right go ahead and switch to shoulder stretch.

Grab one arm, slight push on your shoulder so you feel a pull and we're holding.

Make sure to breathe and switch.

All right and switching to a tricep stretch.

Overhead, grab your elbow, slight pull behind your head and we're holding and go ahead and switch to the other side and hold.

(upbeat music continues) All right, last one.

We're reaching for our toes as far as you can, if you're reaching here that's fine, you should feel a pull in your hamstrings in the back of your legs.

Try to touch your toes the best you can and hold.

Keep holding.

Nice job.

All right, good work, nice job at home, we are finished.

I hope you enjoyed today's movement break, Impact At Home is a chance to apply the skills you may have learned in your PE class to improve your health.

To learn more about the health benefits associated with daily movement, visit impact@homedotumich.edu.

Now don't forget to fill out your daily log, we will see you again during our next workout.

(logo scratches) (children laugh) (birds chirping) - [Narrator] Support for this program is provided by the Michigan Public Health Institute and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Joey] Why do you like space so much?

- [Jerry] There's so much sights to see, Nebulars, hot Jupiters and supernova remnants.

- [Joey] Yeah.

- [Jerry] They look so beautiful.

- [Joey] You know how I fell in love with space?

My mom gave me a really cool space shuttle, you would wind it back and then- - [Jerry] Oh, I have that.

- [Joey] You have that?

So I remember playing with that all the time and I wanted to become a pilot.

I used to fly planes when I was 17 years old and then after that I started commanding spacecraft in NASA.

- [Jerry] Have you ever been to space?

- [Joey] I have not but it's a dream of mine.

- [Jerry] I wanna live on another planet.

- [Joey] Another planet?

- [Jerry] Like what kind of planet would you live on?

- [Joey] Of course everybody's gonna say Mars, right?

Are you gonna say Mars?

- [Jerry] No, Kepler 452B.

- [Joey] Oh yeah so Kepler 452B is your favorite planet?

You know what we call those?

- [Jerry] Exoplanets.

- [Joey] and there's actually, we estimate to be trillions of galaxies out there so there's a lot of stars and a lot of exoplanets that we gotta find and so we need people like you to keep doing what you're doing and it's one thing to get to this place where you know all this knowledge but it's another thing to teach a knowledge.

- [Jerry] Yeah.

- [Joey] So you were in kindergarten and you taught the fifth graders, right?

- [Jerry] Yeah.

- [Joey] How did you like that?

- [Jerry] It was a big opportunity for me.

I like taught all the planets, it was awesome.

(Joey laughs) - How do you feel when we visit each other and we get to talk about space?

- It feels good, I learn from you a lot, like more than I can imagine.

- You're my favorite person to talk about space too, you know that?

- Yeah.

- And you're learning so much by yourself too that you're teaching me as well, that's really cool.

The more you learn, the more we realize the little things in life we take for granted are the very things that make life possible.

So when I look up in the stars I think about that.

- [Jerry] That is pretty cool.

- [Joey] My hope is that you are always gonna be doing and learning about the things that you love the most.

You can do whatever you want but in the future I think you're gonna go to Kepler 452B.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) (upbeat music) - I am an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

I work on the Mars science laboratory Curiosity rover.

I am a systems engineer and I've been doing a lot of testing for the past few years on activities that use the robotic arm and we test them here on earth in the Mars yard.

I'm also training to be a rover driver and operate the robotic arm actually on Mars for the Curiosity rover.

(logo chimes) In a typical day, I drive into work, I work at a NASA facility, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and we have a lot of wildlife, a lot of flowers, we're in the mountains there in Pasadena, California, we see deer, sometimes there's been a bear on lab, that was a little scary and then we go in and we first look at the data from Curiosity that it had acquired on the day before, on the Mars day which is called a sol, on the sol before.

Curiosity's typical day is that in her morning she receives commands and instructions from earth then she executes those.

So she does all of the activities that we plan for her, she acquires a whole bunch of science data, images, things like that.

Then that data gets sent back to earth and then we, the engineers as well as the scientists, look at that data and decide what Curiosity is going to do the next day.

So the scientists are looking at it from a point of view of what, where do they wanna drive or what rocks do they wanna explore more detail and the engineers we're looking at to see if curiosity is healthy and if all of the activities executed properly and then we're also contributing constraints to the science team, we're telling them how much power they have and those types of things and whether or not it's safe to do that and then as a rover planner, I either plan specifically the commands for the arm and how to place the robotic arm on things or how to save those samples and drop them off or also plan the driving and that's really fun because we get to put on our 3D glasses and look at the rocks, look at all the terrain and say, "Oh, is this rock safe to drive over?

"Do I want, when I stop "and I'm about to place the drill on a rock, "do I really wanna be perched up with one wheel "on a big rock?

"I probably don't."

So those are the types of things we're looking at putting on those 3D glasses and feeling like we're on Mars almost.

(logo chimes) When I was growing up I didn't necessarily think that women would, could be engineers.

I think everyone told me that women could be anything they wanted but I never saw anyone that was a woman and was also an engineer until I went to college and so I just want everyone to know that really it is for anyone, anyone can do it and don't listen to anyone in your school that's teasing you or telling you that things can't be the way you want them to be because if you put your mind to it you can do whatever you want.

(logo whooshes) (upbeat music) (rocket whooshes) - Hi, my name is Mark from the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology.

Today, we're gonna talk about rockets.

(engine revs) What is a rocket?

A rocket is an instrument that we use here to send things into space such as like a satellite, maybe a rover, people but what is a rocket exactly?

Well, a rocket has four elements.

One of them is gonna be the nose, the next one is gonna be the body, it's gonna have some fins and then it's gonna have combustion.

In order to build a rocket you're gonna need scissors, tape, a straw, pen or pencil, a ruler.

Also, you're gonna need a piece of paper and you're gonna draw a rectangle.

It's gonna have the measurements of one inch by four inch and then you're gonna have triangles.

It doesn't matter how big is your triangle, you can make it smaller, you can make it bigger.

You can have two, you can have three or you can have four.

That will help you for your fin.

Now we start cutting our rocket.

Lets cut the rectangle and then the triangle.

(engine revs) Now I finished cutting, four triangles and one rectangle.

It doesn't matter how many triangles you want, I choose four.

Let's start building a rocket.

The first thing you're gonna need is your pencil to wrap it around your paper, kind of like a taco.

Get the tape.

(upbeat music) (tape thuds) The first part is done.

Now you can do it by yourself, you can always ask someone to help you.

(upbeat music continues) You get the second piece of tape and wrap it around on the top.

Now that I have done the bottom and the top, let's do one a long the sides.

(upbeat music continues) What do you know?

There goes my body.

Now, the next thing I wanna do is fold the tip of my body, just like so.

Get some more tape and there you go.

Now you got a tip.

We use a straw because we want it to be smaller than the diameter that we use when we put it inside our rocket.

To finalize this, we're gonna get our fins and we're gonna attach them to the bottom of our rocket.

So we have to tape.

(upbeat music) Grab the fin.

The fins are gonna be important for us to have, why?

Because they're gonna help us to keep direction and there you go, I have one done.

Grab your fin again (upbeat music) and now I have two.

(rocket whooshes) Now that I have finished my rocket let's test it, shall we?

I have a rocket and I have my straw.

So you will put it inside and when I test it first, zero degrees, I don't have a protractor, how do I do that?

Use your hand, parallel to the ground.

(Mark exclaims) Let's see how far is that goes.

This is my feet.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

Let's test it one more time.

What about 45 angle degrees?

45, how do I measure that?

Zero, 45.

This time change, let's see.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Let's test it one more time, shall we?

What about 90 degrees?

Let's see what happens.

90.

One, two, three, four, five.

(engine revs) So as you can see we tested different angles and with different distances.

How fun was that?

You can make it shorter, you can make a longer, one fin, two fins.

You're the engineer, you decide.

Have fun building your own rocket.

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone I'm Mr. Lineberger and I'm so glad to be here with you today.

There was this old commercial about candy bars.

This one candy bar has chocolate mixed with peanut butter, if you didn't know better, you might not think those two would go with each other but once you've tasted them together, delicious.

In the commercial someone accidentally gets the chocolate and the peanut butter mixed together, they're disappointed at first but when they taste the resulting mix they experienced sweetness.

Today's lesson is all about the chocolate and peanut butter of math.

Our chocolate is division and our peanut butter is fractions.

Those are two awesome treats by themselves but when you mix the two, you get sweet bliss.

To stick with today's theme, today's lesson is going to be all about cookies.

Let's start this party by thinking about fractions.

Take a fraction like 1/6, What is a sixth really?

It's a whole divided into six parts like this giant cookie I'm imagining.

This cookie is so big one person can't eat it all, you've got to divide it into six and let five other people share it.

A sixth then is really just the whole divided into six parts.

It's just one divided by six.

Did that blow your mind?

1/6 is another way to write one divided by six.

In fact, all fractions if you think about them this way are just division problems.

Think of a crazy fraction like 2/77.

That's just dividing something into 77 parts and taking two of them, which is the same as two divided by 77.

We might write this as a formula of sorts.

A/B equals A divided by B.

If our fraction is 4/7, then we could write our formula as 4/7 equals four divided by seven.

2/11 would be two divided by 11.

Are fractions just division?

Yes, they are.

Well, what about those fractions greater than one?

Yeap, those are still just division problems.

Take a fraction greater than one like 18/5, you can represent it as 18 wholes divided five ways, which is the same as 18 divided by five or think about our formula.

A/B equals A divided by B.

18/5 equals 18 divided by five.

No matter what you can think of fractions as top number divided by bottom number or numerator divided by the denominator.

Time to get some cookies involved.

Imagine I have three friends, so there's three friends plus me that's four of us, we're splitting a box of cookies.

If there are 20 cookies in a box, how many cookies do we each get?

We could represent this as a division problem.

20 divided by four equals some unknown quantity of cookies, we could set this up as a partial quotient problem like this with 20 inside the box and four on the outside of the box, we could draw 20 cookies, then count them off for each person.

Hey, we could even just open a box of cookies and counts them out and count them out, which sounds like the tastiest plan I've heard so far or we could represent this as a fraction, 20 divided by four is the same thing as 20/4.

If we simplify that fraction we get the answer which in this case is five.

How did I simplify that in my head?

I just asked myself what time four equals 20?

Five.

Five times four equals 20.

So let's make this just a little trickier.

Imagine instead of splitting one box of cookies with my friends what if I split seven boxes of cookies?

How many boxes of cookies will we each get?

If I think of this as a division problem I want to divide seven boxes by four people.

Seven divided by four is the same as a fraction with the numerator of seven and a denominator of four.

If I want to, I can stop there.

Each of us gets 7/4 boxes of cookies.

That's not very easy for me to picture in my mind so I want to turn this into a mixed number.

7/4 is the same thing as 4/4 plus 3/4.

So 7/4 is one and 3/4, that's easier for my brain.

If we split the seven box of cookies, each of us gets one whole block, a whole box plus 3/4 of a box.

Staying in the same line of thinking, what if we change our problem a little.

Instead of seven boxes of cookies divided by four people, what if we did four boxes of cookies divided among seven people?

How would we write that?

If you said four divided by seven or 4/7, you're right and there's your answer, each person would get 4/7 of a box of cookies.

Let's picture what that would actually look like.

Here's my box of cookies, like so, I'll divide it into sevenths so that's One, two, three, four, five, six, seven equal parts.

Now let's color in four of those, 4/7.

As you can see, if I divide my box of cookies in half, 4/7 is just a little more than half so we're talking about a little more than half a box of cookies for each person.

Let's wrap things up with one more problem.

Imagine that I'm going to give these cookies to my class, I have 20 students in my class and I have 32 cookies to give them.

I have four jugs of juice to go with the cookies so I put my class into four groups.

First, how many students are in each group?

Then we wanna know how many cookies will each group get, finally, how many cookies will each student get?

There's a lot of parts to this problem so let's break it down step-by-step.

First, let's set up the groups.

We divide 20 by four to get 20 students in four groups.

Let's represent that as a fraction, 20/4.

If we're satisfied with that there's my answer.

Each group has 20/4 students.

I need an easier number to work with but I know 20/4 is the same as five, each group has five students.

Now I'll figure out how many cookies per group.

I take 32 cookies and divide by four groups.

That's 32/4, each group gets 32/4 cookies.

Four times eight is 32, so 32/4 equals eight, each group gets eight cookies.

Four groups, eight cookies per group.

The last part is knowing how many cookies per student.

Eight cookies per group divided by five students per group, each student then gets 8/5 cookies, that's the same as one and 3/5, so each student gets one whole cookie and 3/5 of another cookie.

We can check our math by drawing a model.

Here are my eight cookies for the group.

I can give a whole cookie to each group member like so, I'll divide the remaining cookies into five parts each.

Now, when I want to give those out, each group member gets 1/5 of the first cookie, 1/5 of the second cookie and 1/5 of the third cookie, that's a total of one whole cookie plus one, two, 3/5.

One and 3/5.

Sometimes drawing a picture really helps me understand the problem.

Today we learned that division problems can be represented as fractions.

The numerator is divided by the denominator.

If you think of division problems as fractions then often the answer is right there.

My favorite fraction, is that fraction of a cookie.

(Mr. Lineberger laughs) (upbeat music) - I had an amazing time exploring outer space with you, what did you think about Jessica's job as a NASA engineer?

I loved it.

- Thanks for having me.

- Until next time.

- [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan and by viewers like you.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (lighthearted music)